And the 5 times safer quote - I wonder what that really means? Five times more likely to die? Injuries are five times worse?

The "5 times safer" relates to the fewer accidents in countries where rear facing is the law.

Kids heads are proportionally massive to their bodies, their necks can't handle the force as well as adults , hence rear facing being safer. The people here arguing for "forward facing"...it's just dumb.

Edit: Sorry by accidents i mean fewer fatalities.

These figures are not made up by the manufacturers, they are the result of safety research.

Someone asked if it didn't make a difference if your car is old and unsafe. Yes it does. Your child will be five times more likely to die in a head on collision, whether it's a Roller or an old 305. I can put up with a bit of frustrated crying given those numbers. And it's nothing to do with driving into things - more to do with the standard of others' driving.

I was driven into last month, doing 30 on the high street - my car was written off. You cannot legislate against other peoples' stupidity.

I'm not disputing the 5x research. But this has been talked about on telly recently.

Your kid is not 5x more likely to die in a car accident. Your kid is 5x more likely to die IF you have a car accident. So chance of death generally within the first 4 years of life is only very slightly increased.

We weighed it up and made a decision based on the happiness and desires of our particular kids and the risk. As I'm sure you all do

Due to the function and performance of the iSize unit 2wayPearl vs standard forward facing Pearl it was not possible to use the same base. Changes were required to the base to make ERF suitable and to make it meet iSize standard. If we could have used the same base to help keep costs down we would have done, but it was not something we were able to do.

As with all companies and all products we are continually developing new ideas and moving forward with technology and safety standards and new advancements do occur. This does not mean the seat you have is any less safe than it was when you first made the purchase, it simply means that there have been natural developments and there is now an even safer option available to you should you wish to use it.

The Maxi Cosi FamilyFix base used in combination with the Maxi Cosi Pearl remains one of the safest solutions on the market and will continue to be sold for years to come. Parents who have brought the Pebble infant carrier and FamilyFix base can be confident that the Pearl will be available when their child needs it. The new 2wayFix base and 2wayPearl has been developed to meet the newly-launched iSize regulations and will be sold alongside the current Pearl, providing parents with a choice of options.

5 x safer is utterly meaningless aside from the variability of source if we are talking of a change of 80 in 100 to 20 in a 100 i will put up with the other risks of rear facing infavour of the physical safty if we are talking of a change from .002 in 100 to .01 in a 100 then lack of frustration for child and passenger and improved interaction with the child mean i will have crankbrat face foreward . crashes are rare events crashes with a restrained child where the child is harmed are rarer crashes with a restrained child where the diffence between forward and rearward seats makes a significant difference to outcome even rarer that .

WE have a Maxi-Cosy seat - can't find a link to the exact one). It's not ISO Fix (but neither's the car).

Our son screamed and screamed from the second he was in his rear facing car seat until he was lifted out. He also seemed to get travel sick.

When he was about 1 year old, we put him in the forward facing seat and he loves it. He can see out of the window , chatting away and enjoys the car. Ours can be fixed forwards or backwards. Surely there are ISO Fix seats that can too.

Oh, and the chance of a child (under 16) dying in the UK as the occupant of a car is 0.00000035. Five times more likely in a forward facing seat is 0.00000175.

*IF* I ever have a head on accident and I sincerely hope I won't, it will almost certainly be the fault of the other driver, who's had a heart attack on a 60mph stretch of road / crossed the motorway upside down due to buying remoulds / pushed his luck on a 'B' road. Why? Because I'm a tight auld Scotsman who drives as if he was on an invisible bike but still holds his head up in a confident manner.

It's not inevitable but *IF* it happens, my wee boy will be five **** times more likely to live. In a head on crash.

Those ^^^ numbers are a nonsense. Either it'll happen, or it won't. That's 50 / 50. My child is in a rear facing seat, like it or no.

Thanks DD. Looks like our familyfix's will be appearing in the classifieds soon!

Really? Tbh, I've done a bit of reading up since this thread appeared and decided that the probabilities have so many zeros after the decimal place as to be meaningless in the real world. So, I'm sticking to the option with which we were perfectly happy a little more than a year ago. I'm still not convinced that Maxi-Cosi couldn't have designed a rearward facing seat for the existing base - but they're saying they couldn't and I have to take their word for it.

Existing i-Size stuff seems to be saying that rearward facing is better up to 15 months. Our wee fella is 13 months and is a small baby anyway so I reckon we'll get another month-ish out of the Pebble. In which case, his neck should be strong enough to go into the forward facing Pearl when the time comes.

Friends of ours had a flipping enormous baby who had to go into a bigger seat somewhere between 8 and 9 months - so I'm glad I'm not in their position - difficult choice.

5 times safer

Where has this statistic come from anyway? (serious question) Generally, statistics like that whiff a bit of "Tell mummy and daddy their baby will be five times safer and they'll spend anything to get themselves a new system."

Why? Because I'm a tight auld Scotsman who drives as if he was on an invisible bike but still holds his head up in a confident manner.

The problem is if they drive up his arsenic the child is 5x more likely to be injured the good thing is that the chances of that accident are slim the chances of that accident with sufficient speed are slimmer the chances of that accident with sufficient speed causing an injury to his child are really really slim.

You can get the most dramatic risk changes on the margins. My school had a 300% increase in cannabis miss use. Clearly something drastic needed to be done. It had 500 pupils in year one Joe was found behind the bike sheds smoking a spliff in year 2 Joe and his three mates were found sharing a spliff. Not such a dramatic problem after all.

My school had a 300% increase in cannabis miss use. Clearly something drastic needed to be done. It had 500 pupils in year one Joe was found behind the bike sheds smoking a spliff in year 2 Joe and his three mates were found sharing a spliff. Not such a dramatic problem after all.

Result! You quite possibly had a per-capita reduction in consumption through the sharing of spliffs! More headline grabbing stats to testify to the effectiveness of your school's anti-drugs programme.

to her it doesn't matter how small the percentages are, it's safer so it's better.

Simply wear your helmet and any body armour you have to bed. When she asks why point out that you are now safer so therefore it is better.

Seriously though - it's up to everyone to do what they think is best for their kids. At the end of the day I didn't think the increased risk was significant enough to justify the discomfort/inconvenience etc. Other will call it the other way. That's fine too.